Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Camera Integration
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Camera Integration
- New search for: R. E. Sward
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In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have provided a bird's eye view of the battlefield with onboard video cameras feeding video images back to a ground control station. This paper reports on a project conducted by members of the Air Force Academy's UAV Research Group to purchase equipment and build an integrated video capture system for a small UAV. The project was funded by a grant from the Institute for Information Technology Applications (IITA). The UAV Research Group (UAVRG) at the Air Force Academy currently consists of over 25 members from 11 different academic departments. Over the past 3 years, they have gained experience in small UAVs such as the Desert Hawk UAV, designed by Lockheed Martin, and the Silver Fox UAV, developed by Advanced Ceramics Research (ACR). They have continued to expand their expertise with these UAVs and have developed a flying test bed that can be used to test UAV applications using real UAVs. The group is using aircraft in the test bed that are less expensive than the operational UAVs, but still based on the Piccolo autopilot module, the same autopilot used in the Silver Fox. Using the grant from IITA, the UAVRG has purchased equipment to capture video from an airborne UAV. The purpose of this project was to learn more about the limitations and benefits of video cameras, video capture hardware and software, and digital storage capacities. The paper serves as the final report for this project. It describes the equipment that the UAVRG purchased and the integration of this equipment into a video capture system. It also describes how the camera was physically mounted onto the UAV and the limitations the group encountered in accomplishing that. The paper also reports on experiments that the cadets in the Software Engineering class conducted to compare the different video compression and storage algorithms available for the system.
Document information
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Camera Integration
2004
20 pages
Report
No indication
English
Aircraft , Laboratory & Test Facility Design & Operation , Recording Devices , Photographic Techniques & Equipment , Test and evaluation , Aerial cameras , Onboard , Drones , Video recording , Digital recording systems , Computer programs , Flight testing , Integrated systems , United states air force academy , Digital images , Image compression , Microminiaturization , Charge coupled devices , Lightweight , Microcomputers , Transmitters , Test beds , Airborne , Low energy , Receivers , Uav(Unmanned aerial vehicles) , Video cameras , Flying test beds , Video transmitters , Video receivers , Ccd cameras , Capturepro software , Video capture software